Last Modified: Monday, September 30, 2013 at 11:58 p.m.

James Edward Hardigan, 69, pleaded guilty in May in a Virginia court and faced up to 20 years in prison for felony embezzlement. He got a 10-year suspended sentence and was fined $2,500.

James Edward Hardigan, of the 100 block of Torcello Court in Venice, pleaded guilty in May in a Virginia court and faced up to 20 years in prison for felony embezzlement. He appeared before a judge in Richmond, Va., for sentencing last week.

The case stems from Hardigan's days as a professor at the School of Dentistry at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In 1995, Hardigan reportedly opened an investment account in the name of the VCU Dental Faculty Practice Association with $500,000 of the association's money. The association accepts patients and provides oral health care through its affiliation with VCU.

Prosecutors claim that, when he retired in 2004, Hardigan moved $137,553 that remained in the association's account to a personal account. They say 63 cents in interest later accrued in the association's account. That eventually prompted the investment firm that still had the account to notify the association, which did not know the account existed.

An audit then turned into a police investigation, which led to Hardigan's indictment by a grand jury in January.

At the sentencing hearing, Hardigan's attorney, Jeffrey L. Everhart, reportedly argued that his client had no criminal record prior to this case and otherwise led an “exemplary life.” He stressed that Hardigan cooperated with authorities and returned the money.

“I cannot put this man at his age in a correctional facility, given the facts of the case and the full restitution,” Cavedo said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “He would be the oldest person I ever locked up.”

Hardigan apologized to his family in court and said he had acted with “abject stupidity,” the Times-Dispatch reported.

According to Sarasota County property records, Hardigan bought a newly constructed home in Venetian Golf & River Club in 2004.

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